


Delirium

by ZydrateNote



Series: WTNV [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Desert Bluffs, M/M, Night Vale, Post-Episode: e049 Old Oak Doors Part B, bloody kevin, desert wasteland
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-22
Updated: 2014-07-22
Packaged: 2018-02-09 23:08:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2001546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZydrateNote/pseuds/ZydrateNote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos's time in the Desert Wasteland is full of weary longing, until his radio host come to greet him.  But he seems a bit off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Delirium

Sweat poured down his face, blistering sun searing his exposed skin.  Heat had long since lead him to peel off his soaked tee shirt, and discard the flannel over top.  Only logic, decency, and fear of skin cancer urged him to retain his pants and long, white, lab coat.  Yet again he pushes his glasses up his slick nose.  His fingers trail into his lovely hair, cursing the imperfect heavens for its length.  

Carlos struggled up the next dune, the sand shimmering and unfocused in his dehydrated gaze.   _I should sit_.  He thought to himself.   _At the top of this bluff.  Just sit down and rest- No_.  He shook his head.  He had to keep going, to find a way back to Cecil. _Cecil._  He fumbled in his trouser pocket for his phone.  Raising it to eye level, the beaming sun reflects off the LED screen.  Letters swam before him, the rectangle of data and electricity becoming an unintelligible swarm of color and information.  The phone slip’s through Carlos’s fingers, landing softly in the sand that drowns the desert.  He holds still, wanting to reach out and pick it up.  Wanting to dial.  Wanting to hear that velvet tenor voice sing assurances and love into his ear.  

He stoops to retrieve it, hands grasping at the arid sand.  He freezes, movement catching his eye.  He straightens up, staring at the source.  Another figure staggers towards the dune.  A figure not tall, nor short.  Not thin, nor fat.  A figure so familiar yet… Off.  Something in his eyes, or the wide smile plastered to his face.  But these differences had no space to blossom in the exhausted and weakened mind of Carlos the Scientist.  Instead came a spark of strength.  His legs carry him forward, pulling him down the sand slope.  The man in the distance raises his head to look at the desperate scientist hurtling toward him.  A look of pure relief and recognition spreads across his face.  

Sand sprays as Carlos skids to a halt in front of his one goal.  The new man embraces him.  He eagerly returns the hug, wrapping his arms tightly about the man’s shoulders.  He pulls back slightly and kisses him.  The radio host kisses him back, passion and love apparent in his actions.  The days of longing, of phone calls, of promiscuous SnapChats, and of sadness were over at long last.  Carlos drew back to examine his lover’s beautiful lilac eyes.  

“Cecil, you’re-” His cracking and whispering voice breaks off.  The eyes before him were not lilac.  They were not light, and full of warmth and devotion.  These eyes, no, not eyes.  These were hollow, black sockets where eyes should be.  Dried blood, previously dripped from the damage spots the man’s cheeks.  Where Cecil’s third, strange eye should be, there were only sloppy stitches.  The blood that stains his forehead was fresh, still leaking down the chillingly delighted face.  This was not his Cecil.  A dull, echoing line played through Carlos’s mind.   _Kill your double_.  

He steps back quickly, shoes sliding in the sand.  The man before him grips his hands tightly, halting his fall.

“You need to be more careful!  We don’t want you getting hurt…” he tilts his head to one side.  “You’re not Diego.  You must be _Carlos_. ”

“L-let go.  Y-you’re not Cecil.  Well, not my Cecil.  Y-you’re-”

“Kevin!  My name is Kevin!”

Carlos, tried to pull his hands free but the erie man kept a firm grip on them.  A faint buzz interrupts his struggle.  Both he and Kevin glance toward the bluff where Carlos’s phone vibrates in the sand.

“That’s Cecil.  I need to-”

“Answer it?  Oh, no.  After all, you don’t belong in Night Vale, do you?”  His smile, already taught across his face, spreads wider.  He blinks, a sadness seeping into his grin.  “No more, unfortunately, that I belong in Desert Bluffs.”


End file.
